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J.H. Frere
John Hookham Frere (21 May 1769 - 7 January 1846) was an English poet, author, and diplomat."Notes on Life and Works," Selected Poetry of J.H. Frere (1769-1846), Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto, UToronto.ca, Web, Nov. 22, 2011. Life Overview Frere was the eldest son of John Frere, a distinguished antiquary. He was born in London, and educated at Eton and University of CambridgeCambridge]]. He became a clerk in the Foreign Office, and subsequently entering Parliament was appointed Under Foreign Secretary. In 1800 he was Envoy to Portugal, and was Ambassador to Spain 1802-1804, and again 1808-1809. In 1818 he retired to Malta, where he died He was a contributor to the Anti-Jacobin, to Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets (1801), and to Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. He also made some masterly translations from Aristophanes; but his chief original contribution to literature was a burlesque poem on Arthur and the Round Table, purporting to be by William and Robert Whistlecraft. All Frere's writings are characterised no less by scholarship than by wit.John William Cousin, "Frere, John Hookham," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 147. Web, Jan. 13, 2018. Youth and education Frere was born in London, the eldest son of John Frere of Roydon Hall, near Diss, Norfolk, by his wife Jane, only child of John Hookham of Beddington, Surrey, a rich London merchant.Barker, 268. Inn 1785 he went from a preparatory school at Putney to Eton, where he formed his lifelong friendship with Canning. In the following year the 2 friends joined with "Bobus" Smith and some other schoolfellows in starting the Microcosm, the 1st number of which appeared on 6 November 1786, and the last on 30 July 1787. It ran through 40 numbers, which were subsequently published in a collected form, with a dedication to Dr. Davies, the head-master. Frere contributed 5 papers to this periodical (Works, ii. 3–22). From Eton he went to Caius College, Cambridge, where he earned a B.A. in 1792, and an M.A. in 1795. At college he gained several prizes for classical composition, but was prevented by illness from going in for honours. He was fellow of Caius from 1793 to 1816, and in 1792 obtained the members' prize for the Latin essay (the subject was "Whether it be allowable to hope for the improvement of morals and for the cultivation of virtue in the rising state of Botany Bay"). Career On leaving the university Frere entered the foreign office and at a by-election in November 1796 was returned for the pocket borough of West Looe in Cornwall, which he continued to represent until the dissolution of parliament in June 1802; but no speeches of his are reported in the volumes of Parliamentary History for that period. In 1797 he joined with Canning in the publication of the Anti-Jacobin; or, Weekly examiner, the first number of which appeared on 20 November in that year. Gifford was the editor, and many of the pieces were written in concert by Canning, Ellis, and Frere. Jenkinson, afterwards the Earl of Liverpool, Lord Mornington, Chief-baron Macdonald, and Pitt were also among the contributors. Frere's contributions are collected in his Works (ii. 57–161). Besides other pieces, he wrote the greater part of the "Loves of the Triangles," an amusing parody of Dr. Darwin's ‘Loves of the Plants,’ and shared with Canning the authorship of "The Friend of Humanity and the Knifegrinder," and with Canning and Ellis that of the "Rovers; or, The double arrangement." After a brilliant career of 8 months the Anti-Jacobin was brought to a close on 9 July 1798. On 1 April 1799 Frere succeeded his friend Canning as under-secretary of state in the foreign office. In October 1800 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary at Lisbon, and in September 1802 was transferred to Madrid, where he remained for nearly 2 years. In August 1804 Frere was recalled "in consequence of circumstances having occurred that made it impossible for him any longer to communicate personally with the Prince of Peace" (Pitt's Speeches, 1806, iv. 383). The ministry, however, signified their approval of his conduct by granting him a pension of £1,700 a year, and on 14 January 1805 he was sworn a member of the privy council. In June 1807 the Duke of Portland appointed him envoy and minister plenipotentiary at Berlin, but owing to the treaty of Tilsit the mission had to be abandoned. On 4 October 1808 Frere was sent out to Spain as minister plenipotentiary to the Central Junta. Affairs on the Peninsula were then in a very critical state, and his position as the British minister was one of heavy responsibility. In November Napoleon commenced his march upon Madrid. Sir John Moore, the commander of the British forces in the north of Spain, was inclined to retreat through Portugal. Frere, however, confident that Napoleon might be anticipated, urged Moore to advance upon Madrid, or, if retreat was inevitable, to retire through Gallicia. Moore yielded, and, after the disastrous retreat to Corunna, Frere was greatly blamed for the advice he had given. Though Ponsonby's motion in the House of Commons, on 24 February 1809, for an inquiry "into the causes, conduct, and events of the late campaign in Spain," was defeated by 220 to 127 (Parl. Debates, xii. 1057–1119), the government determined to recall Frere, and on 29 April 1809 the Marquis of Wellesley was appointed ambassador to the court of Spain. Frere left in August, having been created "Marquez de la Union" by the Central Junta, "as a mark of their acknowledgment of the zeal with which he had laboured to promote the friendly union and common interest of the two countries." With his 2nd mission to Spain Frere's public career ceased. He afterwards declined the post of ambassador at St. Petersburg, and twice refused the offer of a peerage. Last years On the death of his father in 1807 Frere succeeded to Roydon Hall and the other family estates in the eastern counties. On 12 September 1816 he married Elizabeth Jemima, dowager countess of Erroll, the widow of George, 14th earl of Erroll, and a daughter of Joseph Blake of Ardfry, co. Galway. In 1818 his wife became ill. After trying many changes of climate for the benefit of her health they went to Malta, where they took up their permanent residence. Here he amused himself with literary work, translating Aristophanes and Theognis, and learning Hebrew and Maltese.Barker, 269. In August 1827 Canning died. Talking over the loss of his friend to his niece 2 years afterwards, Frere said: "I think twenty years ago Canning's death would have caused mine; as it is, the time seems so short, I do not feel it as I otherwise should" (Works, i. 209). His wife died in January 1831, and in November of that year Sir Walter Scott paid him a visit. Frere still continued to reside at Malta. He died at the Pietà Valetta on 7 January 1846, in his 77th year, and was buried beside his wife in the English burial-ground overlooking the Quarantine Harbour. Writing As a diplomatist Frere is now almost forgotten, and it is only by the few that he is remembered as a brilliant wit and a sparkling writer of humorous poetry. His translations of Aristophanes cannot fail to be the most lasting memorials of his genius, and the manner in which he has successfully caught the spirit of the original comedies places him in an almost unique place as a translator. In 1817 he published a mock-heroic Arthurian poem entitled Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work; by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers, intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. William Tennant in Anster Fair had used the ottava rima as a vehicle for semi-burlesque poetry 5 years earlier, but Frere's experiment is interesting because Byron borrowed from it the measure that he brought to perfection in Don Juan.Frere, John Hookham," Encyclopædia Britannica 11th Edition, 1911, 11, 207. His metrical version of the "Ode on Æthelstan's Victory" appeared in the 2nd edition of Ellis's Specimens of Early English Poets (1801, i. 32–4). It was written by Frere when at Eton, and is a remarkable example of the skilful adoption of the language and style of another period. Mackintosh, in his History of England, says that it :is a double imitation, unmatched, perhaps, in literary history, in which the writer gave an earnest of that faculty of catching the peculiar genius and preserving the characteristic manner of his original which, though the specimens of it be too few, places him alone among English translators (i. 50). Scott, too, declares, in his Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, that it was the only poem he had met with "which, if it had been produced as ancient, could not have been detected on internal evidence" (Poetical Works, 1830, iii. 21). 3 of Frere's translations from the Poem of the Cid were printed as an appendix to Southey's Chronicle of the Cid (1808, pp. 437–68). In 1819 Frere formed one of Byron's "cursed puritanical committee" which decided against the publication of the first canto of Don Juan. Though an original projector of the Quarterly Review, Frere's only contribution to it was an article on "Mitchell's Translations of Aristophanes," which appeared in the number for July 1820 (pp. 474–505). It is signed "W," for Whistlecraft, and is a very early instance of a reviewer signing his contribution. Indolent, and unambitious for literary fame, Frere cared only for the appreciation of cultivated judges. Several of his productions were privately printed, and have become exceedingly rare. Miscellaneous He was the author of the following works: 1. ‘Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. Intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table’ (cantos i. and ii.), London, 1817, 8vo; 2nd edition, London, 1818, 8vo. This revival in English poetry of the octave stanza of Pulci, Berni, and Casti attracted great attention at the time. Byron, writing to Murray from Venice in October 1817, says: ‘Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater admirer than myself. I have written a story in eighty-nine stanzas in imitation of him, called “Beppo”’ (Moore, Life, 1847, p. 369). 2. Cantos iii. and iv. (of the same work), London, 1818, 8vo. The four cantos were also published together in 1818 under the title of ‘The Monks and the Giants Prospectus and Specimen,’ &c.; fourth edition, London, 1821, 12mo; another edition, Bath, 1842, 8vo. 3. ‘Fables for Five-Years-Old,’ Malta, 1830, 12mo. 4. ‘The Frogs,’ London, 1839. Frere says: ‘The greater part of this play Frogs’ had been printed upwards of twenty years ago, having been intended for private distribution; an intention to which the writer adheres, being unwilling to cancel what had been already printed and in part distributed.’ 5. ‘Aristophanes. A Metrical Version of the Acharnians, the Knights, and the Birds, in the last of which a vein of peculiar humour and character is for the first time detected and developed’ (anon.), London, 1840, 4to. These 3 plays, each of which are separately paged, were privately printed for Frere at the government press in Malta in 1839, and were afterwards published by Pickering in England in 1840 under the above title. Reprinted as No. 37 of Morley's ‘Universal Library,’ London, 1886, 8vo. In Coleridge's will, dated September 1829, the following interesting passage occurs: "Further to Mr. Gillman, as the most expressive way in which I can only mark my relation to him, and in remembrance of a great and good man, revered by us both, I leave the manuscript volume lettered “Arist. Manuscript—Birds, Acharnians, Knights,” presented to me by my dear friend and patron, the Right Hon. John Hookham Frere, who, of all men I have had the means of knowing during my life, appears to me eminently to deserve to be characterised as ὁ καλοκἀγαθός ὁ φιλόκαλος." 6. ‘Theognis Restitutus. The personal history of the poet Theognis, deduced from an analysis of his existing fragments. A hundred of these fragments, translated or paraphrased in English metre, are arranged in their proper biographical order with an accompanying commentary, with a preface in which the suggestion of Mr. Clinton, as to the true date of the poet's birth (viz. in Olymp. 59), is confirmed by internal evidence’ (anon.), Malta, 1842, 4to. Reprinted (but without the introduction and the synopsis of historical dates) in the volume of Bohn's Classical Library containing The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis, London, 1856, 8vo. 7. ‘Psalms,’ &c. (anon.), London 1848?, 4to.Barker, 270. Critical introduction by Henry Austin Dobson Frere's versions of the Aristophanic Comedy have an established reputation for spirit of rendering and mastery of metre. His translations from the Poema del Cid, which were printed in Southey’s Chronicle, have also a fine balladic lilt; but their literal fidelity to the Spanish has been lately challenged. Of his original work, the best examples are to be found in the Anti-Jacobin and the Whistlecraft fragment. He had a hand in all the great successes of the former,— notably the immortal Needy Knife-Grinder and the excellent imitations of Darwin and Schiller in the "Loves of the Triangles" and "The Rovers". For The Monks and the Giants he adopted an 8-line stanza based upon that of the Italians. It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere’s contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honour of giving it the special characteristics which Byron afterwards popularised in "Beppo" and Don Juan. Structurally the ottava rima of Frere singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that Whistlecraft was his "immediate model". But notwithstanding the cleverness and versatility of The Monks and the Giants, its interest was too remote and its plan too uncertain to command any but an eclectic audience. Moreover, it was almost immediately eclipsed by "Beppo". Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill and greater genius, filled it with the vigour of his personality, and made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for inferior poets to attempt.from Henry Austin Dobson, "Critical Introduction: John Hookham Frere (1769–1846)," The English Poets: Selections with critical introductions (edited by Thomas Humphry Ward). New York & London: Macmillan, 1880-1918. Web, June 22, 2016. Recognition Frere's complete works were published in 1871, with a memoir by his nephews, W.E. and Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, with a 2nd edition in 1874. A portrait of Frere by Hoppner was exhibited in the 3rd Loan Collection of National Portraits in 1868 (Cat. No. 235). At Holland House, where he was a frequent visitor, there is a portrait of him by Arthur Shee, as well as a bust executed by Chantrey in 1817. Publications Poetry *''The Monks and the Giants: Prospectus and specimen of an intended national work ... intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table'' (by "William & Robert Whistlecraft"). London: John Murray, 1821; New York: Garland, 1978 Cantos I-II, Cantos III-IV **also published as The Monks and the Giants (edited by Ross Douglas Waller). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press / London & New York: Longmans Green, 1926. *''John Hookham Frere's National Poems: King Arthur and his Round Table, or, The monks and the giants by William and Robert Whistlecraft; Athelstan's Victory; and other miscellaneous writing'' (edited by Richard Herne Sheppard). London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1867. Translated *Aristophanes, The Frogs. London: W. Nicol, 1839. *Aristophanes, A Metrical Version of The Acharnians, The Knights, and The Birds. London: William Pickering, 1840; London & New York: Routledge, 1887. *Aristophanes, Four Plays (with introduction by W. Walter Merry). London: Humphrey Milford, for Oxford University Press, 1907. Collected editions *''The Works: In verse and prose'' (edited by William Edward Frere). (3 volumes), London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1874. . Volume I, Volume II, Volume III Anthologized *''Poetry of the Anti-Jscobin'' (edited by Charles Edmonds). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington / New York: Putnam, 1890. *''The Plays of Aristophanes'' (with introduction to Volume II by Frere). (2 volumes), London: Dent, 1909, 1911. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:John Hookham Frere, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 23, 2016. See also * List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Jan. 13, 2018. * Gabrielle Festing, John Hookham Frere and his Friends. London: J. Nisbet, 1899. Notes External links ;Poems * "A Fable," The Wondering Minstrel *Frere at The English Poets: An anthology: [http://www.bartleby.com/337/969.html Extract from The Monks and the Ghosts] * Selected Poetry of J.H. Frere (1769-1846) ("The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder") at Representative Poetry Online *John Hookham Frere at PoemHunter (2 poems) *John Hookham Frere at Poetry Nook (48 poems) ;About *John Hookham Frere in the Encyclopædia Britannica * Original article is at "Frere, John Hookham" in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]] *John Hookham Frere at English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Frere, John Hookham Frere, John Hookham Frere, John Hookham Category:1769 births Category:1846 deaths Category:18th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets